APS News

May 2017 (Volume 26, Number 5)

Education and Diversity Update

Graduate Education and Bridge Program Conference Materials Now Available

More than 150 faculty members, administrators, and students came to College Park, MD on February 10-12, 2017 for the third APS Graduate Education Conference, which was held jointly with the APS Bridge Program meeting. Participants heard talks and participated in workshops on topics including holistic admissions practices, program innovations, working with mental health issues, and best practices for recruiting and retaining a diverse graduate student cohort. Many presentations are now available on the conference website for those interested.

2017 Physics Teacher Education Coalition Conference

Slides from the 2017 Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) Conference are now available at the PhysTEC website (phystec.org). The nation's largest meeting dedicated to educating physics teachers took place February 17-18 in Atlanta and featured workshops on best practices and presentations by national leaders in physics teacher education.

PhysTEC Teacher of the Year

Alexandra Boyd of Holly Springs High School in Holly Springs, North Carolina was named the 2017 National PhysTEC Teacher of the Year. This award recognizes outstanding high school physics teachers and demonstrates the impact of physics teacher preparation programs run by members of the Physics Teacher Education Coalition. Ms. Boyd, a graduate of PhysTEC member Elon University, was noted for her success as both a teacher and department chairperson in increasing AP Physics class enrollments in her school, especially in the numbers of young women taking physics.
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Alexandra Boyd

Alexandra Boyd

Woman Physicist of the Month

Kiran Bhaganagar has made original contributions of applying the concepts of turbulence to study complex problems of wind turbines, atmospheric pollution, and chemical warfare agents. Currently, she is working on a novel way of integrating unmanned aerial vehicles in improving turbulence model predictions for atmospheric flows. As an associate professor and the chair of graduate student committee in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas, San Antonio, she teaches courses in numerical methods, fluid dynamics, turbulence, and computational fluid dynamics, and takes an active role in training and mentoring graduate and undergraduate students. Nominate the next Woman Physicist of the Month at the Women in Physics website!

Kiran Bhaganagar

Kiran Bhaganagar

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Editor: David Voss
Staff Science Writer: Rachel Gaal
Contributing Correspondent: Alaina G. Levine
Publication Designer and Production: Nancy Bennett-Karasik